pstarr wrote:I always assumed folks needed to be trained to want that stuff.

Which is all about your patronizing attitude that everyone has to naturally think and feel the way you think they should, otherwise they're being brainwashed and made miserable by some evil force.

Ibon wrote:I suspect the reason is that as capitalists they are just copy cats.

They absolutely ARE copycats. China has not really woken up to the idea that creativity is the key to innovation. Instead they think they can just copy what worked before, but do it cheaper and at a larger scale. And that has worked as far as being the go-to manufacturer for the world but it doesn't enable them to compete directly. In contrast, Japan and South Korea have been able to transcend the cheap knockoff phase.

"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)

In fact, thinking about it I think the main reason China really went for the car culture was to create jobs. Jobs are really the be all end all for China. Keeps the revolutionary fervor quelled. Also what you guys said, they're is a desire for wealth status at play here also. Finally, I suspect venture capitalists both in China and abroad were really gunho about cars and mass producing and marketing them. Lots of money to be made.

“"If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money"”

Anti-ship ballistic missile: The anti-ship ballistic missile is a quasiballistic missile designed to hit a warship at sea. The Chinese military developed the "world's first anti-ship ballistic missile system". The United States Naval Institute in 2009 stated that such a missile would be large enough to destroy an aircraft carrier in one hit and that there was "currently ... no defense against it" if it worked as theorized.[555]Barefoot doctors: China's system of Barefoot doctors was among the most important inspirations for the World Health Organisation conference in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in 1978, and was hailed as a revolutionary breakthrough in international health ideology emphasizing primary health care andpreventive medicine.[556][557]Car fueled by charcoal: In 1931, Tang Zhongming created an internal combustion engine powered bycharcoal and mounted it in an automobile.[558]Carbon aerogel: In 2013, scientists atZhejiang University broke the world record for the world's lightest substance, a carbon aerogel weighing in at 0.16 mg/cc.[559]Electronic cigarette: Hon Lik, a Chinese pharmacist, is widely credited with the invention of the first generation electronic cigarette. In 2003, he came up with the idea of using a piezoelectric ultrasound-emitting element to vaporise a pressurized jet of liquid containing nicotine diluted in a propylene glycol solution.This design produces a smoke-like vapour that can be inhaled and provides a vehicle for nicotine delivery into the bloodstream via the lungs. He also proposed using propylene glycol to dilute nicotine and placing it in a disposable plastic cartridge which serves as a liquid reservoir and mouthpiece.Turning Urine Samples into Brain Cells: This new technique of reprogramming ordinary cells present in urine into immature brain cells that can form multiple types of functioning neurons and glial cells was developed by Chinese researchers in China, and was published in the scientific journalNature Methods in December 2012. Instead of using retrovirus, they used vectors which the researchers say is a breakthrough[560] This does not involve embryonic stem cells which come with serious drawbacks when transplanted, such as the risk of developing tumours. This technique makes the procedure of generating Induced pluripotent stem cells far easier and non-invasive, as the cells can be obtained from a urine sample instead of a blood sample or biopsy. This research proves human excreta could be a powerful source of cells to study disease, bypassing some of the problems of using stem cells, and could be useful for research studying the cellular mechanisms of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and for testing the effects of new drugs that are being developed to treat them.[561][562][563]Cure of a solid cancer: In 1956, Min Chiu Li, who was educated and worked in the USA after leaving China because of the communist takeover, and Roy Hertz, demonstrated that systemic chemotherapy could result in the cure of a widely metastatic malignant disease by his use of methotrexate to cure women ofchoriocarcinoma.[564][565]Maglev wind power generators: In 2006, a new type of wind powergenerator employing magnetic levitation(maglev) was showcased at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition in Beijing.[566][567]Li Guokun was the chief scientific developer of the new maglev wind power generator, in collaboration with the Guangzhou Energy Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology Company based inGuangzhou.[566][567] Li Guokun states that traditional wind turbines need high wind speeds to start, due to friction caused by their bearings.[566][567] The new frictionless maglev wind generator requires wind speeds of only 1.5 m per second (or 5 km an hour) to start and are expected to cut operational costs for wind farms by half, i.e. overall cost of roughly 0.4 Chinese yuan per kilowatt hour.[566][567]Measurement of neutrino mixing angle θ13: The Daya Bay experiment in China reported the measurement of the parameter θ13 in March 2012.[568][569][570][571][572] An important contribution to particle physics, this was named one of the runners-up breakthrough of the year in 2012 byScience[573][574]Non-invasive prenatal diagnostic testing for Down's Syndrome: Previously, women underwent invasive testing such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS). This new maternal blood test has the potential to reduce the number of women referred for invasive testing for Down's syndrome by 98 percent. Developed by Chinese researchers in Hong Kong in 2008, this is hailed as a breakthrough.[575]Synthesis of crystalline bovine insulin: In 1965, Chinese scientists synthesized bovine insulin, with the "same crystalline form and biological activities as natural insulin."[576][577] The project began in 1958, and is considered one of the "first proteins ever synthesized in vitro."[578]Self-balancing skooter: The self-balancing skooter was invented in China, but the fast pace of the Chinese manufacturing industry makes it difficult to pinpoint which company was the first to manufacture the device. According to Wired, the device was likely invented as the "Smart S1" by Chic Robotics, a Chinese technology company associated with Zhejiang University, founded in 2013. The company released the Smart S1 in August 2014, and the device became a popular success at the 2014 Canton Fair trade show. Chic Robotic patented technologies associated with the skooter, but due to China's lax copyright enforcement, the product was illicitly copied by several Chinese manufacturers. The device's increasing popularity in Western countries has been attributed, in part, to celebrity appearances with the skooterSingle-mode optical fiber: ProfessorHuang Hongjia of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed coupling wave theory in the field of microwave theory. He led a research team that successfully developed Single-mode optical fiber in 198Stem cell educator therapy: Chinese and US researchers have produced remarkable results for this new treatment of obtaining stem cells from human cord blood to "re-educate" misbehaving immune cells. This result was published in the open-access journal BMC Medicine in January 2012, and offers hope for Type 1 diabetics and potentially may also be used to treat other auto-immune diseases if the approach lives up to early promise

It's telling that China's biggest success story is a retailer (Alibaba). That's the next step up from manufacturing. I'm not saying they can't innovate, but they are way behind and a lot of this is residual cultural baggage. And limit this to the modern area. No gunpowerder or paper, because you could just as well talk about ancient greece and avoid the dark ages or the golden age of the Muslim empire vs. today with the middle-east being a glorified dark ages once more. It's what have you done lately.

pstarr wrote:I always assumed folks needed to be trained to want that stuff.

Which is all about your patronizing attitude that everyone has to naturally think and feel the way you think they should, otherwise they're being brainwashed and made miserable by some evil force.

Ibon wrote:I suspect the reason is that as capitalists they are just copy cats.

They absolutely ARE copycats. China has not really woken up to the idea that creativity is the key to innovation. Instead they think they can just copy what worked before, but do it cheaper and at a larger scale. And that has worked as far as being the go-to manufacturer for the world but it doesn't enable them to compete directly. In contrast, Japan and South Korea have been able to transcend the cheap knockoff phase.

A Chinese American friend from my childhood who currently lives in New Zealand is a professor of psychology and social sciences and runs a Confucian center and makes regular trips to China. I highly respect his opinion. Here are a couple of his comments

1) The Chinese have taken most of their most treasured traditions like Confucianism and have perverted and twisted these because of their pathological relationship with money

2) It's lights out for the planet if the Chinese central government does not develop an environmentally benevolent authoritarianism.

I think the pursuit of money trumping all else is a pathology in modern Chinese culture. That is worth a thread of its own.

Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Apeblog: http://blog.mounttotumas.com/website: http://www.mounttotumas.com

If they were really so creative they wouldn't try to replicate 1950s American prosperity after getting so many warning signs that it can't be sustained. They'd at least try to find a way to do that 21st century-style, but no.

The Great Leap was China's attempt to emulate the West's industrial revolution to the tune of tens of millions dead. Now they're trying to emulate 1950s suburbia and it will play a huge part in the planet's overall death. But let's all join hands instead and celebrate that China invented paper and gunpowder.

If there's anything I hate more about the discussions here is the selective outrage. There's plenty of blame to go around.

"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)

However, days before US and EU sanctions were lifted on Iran on January 17, Seyyid Mohsen Ghamsari, the head of international affairs at National Iranian Oil Company stated that Iran, “…will try to enter the market in a way to make sure the boosted production will not cause a further drop in prices…We will be producing as much as the market can absorb.” So the new entry of Iran post-sanctions onto world oil markets is not the cause for the sharp oil fall since January 1.

Also not true is that oil import demand from China has collapsed with a supposed collapse of China’s economy. In the year to November 2015 China imported more, significantly more, 8.9% more, year on year, to 6.6 million barrels a day to become the world’s largest oil importer.

II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

They built or imported something like 22 million new cars in 2015 proving this was nothing but a PR stunt.

II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

What PR value? We didn't brag when the US scrapped 11 million vehicles in 2014.

And didn't brag about this either:

"Registrations for light VIO (Vehicles In Operation) in the U.S. also reached a record level of 257,900,000. That’s an increase of more than 5.3 million (2.1 percent) since last year and the highest annual increase the auto industry has seen in the U.S. since IHS began tracking VIO.

If you use the scroll bars you can clearly see from this graph that while the USA had a massive dip in auto sales due to the crash of 2008 things have been pretty steady. On the other hand the car market in China has done nothing but climb with a few minor bobbles on its road of growth for the last decade.

China's passenger car market has grown from just over 5 million sales in 2006 to about 27 million sales in 2016. IOW the Chinese market has grown well over 500% in a decade and their annual sales are now nearly equal to the COMBINED EU/USA annual sales.

All this blather about the USA peaking in auto sales is rather beside the point is it not? If you draw a straight line between the end point of each set on the graph China started selling more cars yearly than the USA in 2011. The margin of sales in China above USA sales has grown every year since 2011. Unless something catastrophic happens China will be selling twice as many cars per year than the USA by 2020 or 2025 at the latest.

USA may have been the origin of 'car culture' but it is no longer the driving force behind it.

I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

If a person can't understand the desire of car ownership by any one they've never had to walk day after day 15 blocks in 95°F temps to catch a bus. And then transfer to a second bus. And then arrive at the target location the better part of 2 hours after the trip started to reach a location you could have gotten to in 30 minutes by car.

The Rockman grew up in S Louisiana and got his drivers license when 26 yo. And bought his first car when he was 27 yo when be could afford a used piece of sh*t Volkswagen Rabbit after working for Mobil Oil for a year. LOL.